Staff facing the axe at a mobile phone company's North-East call centres were buoyed by the news that less than half the job losses would be carried through.

Orange employees had been bracing themselves after 200 nationwide redundancies were forecast in the summer but consultations with staff reduced that figure to 100 - 66 of them in the North-East.

The announcement was tempered by a warning that more may be lost as part of an ongoing restructuring programme.

In August, Orange announced it planned to reorganise its UK call centres, which employ about 5,000.

Following consultations with staff, it forecast that 200 mainly managerial, project, supervisory and coaching positions would have to go.

It was thought that as many as 77 of these would be at the firm's Darlington call centre, 56 at the Peterlee site, and 42 in North Tyneside.

Since then, the company has worked with staff to redeploy some and shed others through natural wastage.

It has reduced the number of redundancies to 100 overall, with 37 jobs being lost at Darlington, 24 at Peterlee and five at North Tyneside.

A company spokeswoman said: "Collective consultation with elected employee representatives began in August and was completed in October.

"Following the end of the consultation period, approximately 200 employees were due to be displaced.

"As we announced at the time, we have tried to retain as many of these employees as possible, and have managed to retain over 100.

"Regrettably, we have not been able to redeploy everyone, and approximately 100 people left the company on Friday."

The spokeswoman stressed that no front line customer service representatives (CSRs) had lost their jobs, and that a recruitment programme for additional CSRs was continuing.

But she warned that as the restructuring was not complete, further redundancies were possible.

"There is always the possibility of other job losses, but they are unlikely to affect front line CSRs," she said.

She added: "All employees who have been made redundant have had the opportunity to access external outplacement specialists to assist them in their future employment prospects.

"We remain committed to providing our customers with first-class service and to investing in our customer facing areas."

The spokeswoman said the restructuring was necessary to enable the company to meet future challenges and deliver the best service.